PR Tips
6
Min read

How to: build a lifestyle media list

Introduction

When building a media list, the first thing you should consider is the type of story that you are sending out. Is it a personal story, a new product launch or a news piece? Are you going to pitch it to one journalist, a number of journalists or send it out as a press release? These are the things that you need to consider before building your media list, as they will influence your desired audience. Maybe you have a great radio story and you want to pitch it out to five producers from lifestyle radio programmes. Maybe it’s a great visual story that would make the perfect television or magazine piece on a lifestyle show. This article will take you through the tools that are available to help you build any lifestyle media list that you want.There is a large volume of lifestyle contacts available on the MediaHQ platform, with 343 available lifestyle journalists in Ireland and 3687 in the UK. Below, you will find a number of different ways in which to build a lifestyle media list that suits your story.

How to build a lifestyle media list

Search for Lifestyle Desks

The first step in building a great lifestyle media list is to search for general lifestyle desks, especially if your press release is centred around a major campaign that aims to reach a wide audience. Some organisations rely on desks to receive press releases so they are a good basis for a media list. Lifestyle desks are usually available on a publication’s website and can easily be sourced using a media contacts database like MediaHQ.

Search by Job Title

As you have already considered the type of story that you are sending out, you may already be aware of the kind of journalist that you should be sending your press release to. Is it an editor or a correspondent? A radio presenter or podcast host? Searching for a specific job role can help to narrow down your search, making your lifestyle media list more accurate to the release you intend to send. Filtering through contacts and ensuring that your list is only made up of journalists who may have a genuine interest in covering your story is a great way to prevent journalists from opting out of your press releases. It also ensures a higher potential for coverage of your story.

Search on Twitter

Twitter can be a powerful tool when it comes to discovering the perfect journalists to add to your lifestyle media list. Often, journalists use Twitter as a platform to share their work and to discuss their area of interest. You can use Twitter to search for job titles, key words or organisations. MediaHQ has a feature called Twitter Connect that allows you to search for keywords from the journalists who have been added to the database.

Contact the Journalist

There are a number of ways to contact a journalist when looking to add them to your media list. In some cases, journalists will have their contact details in their Twitter bios or article by-lines. In the case that they don’t, you may need to find an alternative way to acquire contact details when building a media list. One great way of doing this is by harnessing the power of social media and reaching out to journalists via Twitter. Another way is by using a media contacts database like MediaHQ. A PR tool will grant GDPR compliant access to journalists’ email addresses which can be easily added to your lists of contacts while mitigating the manual grunt work.

Create your Media List

Once you have noted the type of story that you are sending out, the audience that you intend to reach and the media contacts that you should add to your list in order to achieve this, it is time to build your lifestyle list. Begin by gathering both your contacts and their information in the one place - this could be on a spreadsheet, or using a media contacts database like MediaHQ. With both methods, it is important to factor in time to keep your media lists updated on a regular basis.

Keep your List Updated

Once you have created your media list, it will need to be updated on a regular basis for a number of reasons. This will ensure that your lists remain GDPR compliant, that your bounce rate will remain low, while keeping deliverability as high as possible. Dedicating some time each week to updating your media list can be a great way to ensure that it is consistently updated. Using a database also makes it easier to keep your lists up to date as you will be notified when a contact on your list has changed jobs or when their contact details have been updated.

Conclusion

Building a targeted media list can be done in a few easy steps once you have the right methodology. Begin by finding your target audience and the publications that you want to target. Next move on to a search for lifestyle desks. Often, bigger media organisations will have lifestyle desks and these can be a great place to direct your business related press releases. Once you have sourced email addresses for lifestyle desks, it is time to pull together the contacts that you want to add to your media list. This can be done by searching keywords like Lifestyle Journalist’ on Twitter or a business related job role and the organisation name on Google. An easy way to do this in one click is by using a media contacts database, which will allow you to filter based on the job title or topic that a journalist covers and get results for a specific geographical area. When building an Ireland specific list, this can save a lot of time. The next step in the process is to build your list. This can be done on a spreadsheet or through a PR tool like MediaHQ which offers a media contacts database that allows you to create lists and send press releases under one roof. Once your list has been built, it is essential to schedule time on a weekly basis to keep it updated, as contact updates happen automatically with tools like MediaHQ. This methodology should form the basis of building a business media list.

About MediaHQ

Designed for PR and Communications teams, MediaHQ is the all-in-one media contacts database and press release distribution software with the mission to connect your story with your audience.

It was founded by entrepreneur Jack Murray in 2009. Our cutting-edge software is the best, fastest and most accurate way to find the right journalists, build media and pitch lists in seconds, send press releases and get results.

The comprehensive MediaHQ database lists the details of every journalist, and media outlet in the UK and Ireland and is full of time-saving features.

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